30 August 2011

I’ve seen him emerge from oblivion,
like a miner out of the pithead,
after downing Lord knows how much over
the odds, a champ like Stakhanov.
Shirt singed by the fires of Hades,
and black in the face with horror.

But cleaned up, laundered, and sober,
a pedant he was, a fusspot—
washing dishes in good hot water,
mopping up the last little dust-mote.
The desk in apple-pie order.
Style and syntax clipped and sorted.

Those nitpicking letters, neatly
notated in tiny penpricks.
I didn’t resent his needling.
For he knew that at any instant
he could plunge back down again, gagging,
to dark filth and revolting chaos.

Poor old D! He had to be ready—
here’s what fuelled his rage for order—
he could never forget that maybe
the next time he might not be able
from the pit up to daylight to haul,
but would choke on his own blood in Hell.

16 August 2011

Sure, money isn’t everything, but everything isn’t money.
Though nobody in any store ever gave me aught for naught.
I’m really fond of money, with its varied shades of greenery,
and the founding father portrait neat inside his oval court.

You should have lots of money, like pages in a scrapbook,
so you can sigh and say: ‘Just where to put it, I don’t know’.
As the bulge in front gets smaller, so the bulge behind gets larger,
in the left-hand back pocket, so it’s awkward to sit down.

A friend of mine was of this mind—a close friend, but not very,
a bosom pal who underneath was a ferocious foe.
People used to call him ‘Mr Signforwhatyouregetting’,
and he’d sign ‘Allthebestfromme’, admitting it was so.

His best was this: one stool, one bed, a cage with a pet parrot,
its fading senior-citizen eye contemptuous and cruel.
It was a talking parrot, but it didn’t talk that often,
in fact only in Russian, saying just one thing: ‘You fool’.